The triennial Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization has replaced 11 nations on the ICAO Council, the 36-member governing body of the United Nations organization. The top aerospace nations, called Part 1 council members, were reelected by a vote of 171 delegates present among the 190 eligible to cast ballots. The U.S., which provides one-quarter of ICAO’s revenues, accrued 149 votes, among the highest number it has ever received, said U.S. delegate Donald Bliss.
Cessna booked 525 business jet orders in the first eight months of 2007, compared with 496 orders for all of 2006. The company's total backlog has reached an industry-high 2,700 aircraft worth more than $11 billion. Airbus sold a record 36 business jets in the first eight months of 2007, including the first order for a private A380 “flying palace.” The name of the buyer is scheduled to be revealed at November's Dubai air show.
BAE Systems has begun airframe manufacture of its Taranis unmanned combat air vehicle technology demonstrator. Taranis is due to fly in 2010, with the results feeding into the Royal Air Force’s Future Combat Air Capability force mix study work. Taranis is being led by the Defense Ministry’s Strategic UAV (Experiment) project team. The airframe is being manufactured at BAE’s Samlesbury site in the north of England.
The effectiveness of the International Civil Aviation Organization is coming under scrutiny by the nation-members as the United Nations affiliate grapples with troublesome safety issues in Africa and seeks ways to reduce commercial aviation’s impact on the environment.
As aerospace development and manufacturing methods evolve, schedules seemingly remain the most flexible but least forgiving aspect of a complex program. Problems in technology readiness, design, manufacturing, testing and the supply chain can be overcome—sometimes elegantly—with sufficient deployment of resources. But those resources include time as well as money and personnel. And time lost is like money spent; it can never be regained.
In a major advancement for robotic exploration, NASA is moving quickly to make space nuclear power, and eventually nuclear propulsion, an inherent design element in near-term, medium-cost planetary missions. The objective will be to open previously isolated areas of the Solar System for robotic exploration as early as 2013. U.S. nuclear-powered space missions have been few and far between, hampered by cost, politics and the pace of technology development at the Energy Dept., NASA and the contractors.
Top Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee want to delay funding for the Homeland Security Dept.’s new National Applications Office (NAO), formed to coordinate sharing of classified satellite imagery with state and local law enforcement agencies. Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and others on the panel ask leaders of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee to hold up money until the department strengthens privacy and civil liberties protections.
A lot can happen in a year—just ask the management of Brazil’s Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes S.A-Gol. Its rise to become a low-fare darling on Wall Street and Aviation Week & Space Technology’s 2006 top-performing airline among its peers (revenues of $1-4 billion) is being tempered by its controlling shareholder, who is considering delisting the stock and taking the company private.
Who is flying those two required navigation performance (RNP) approaches at Gary, Ind., as discussed in “Jepp Pursues RNP” (AW&ST Sept. 10, p. 58)? It is not the Boeing Business Jets/Challengers mentioned in the article because their crews are not authorized to fly RNP SAAAR (special aircraft and aircrew authorization required) under FAA Advisory Circular 90-101, “Approval Guidance for RNP Procedures with SAAAR.” Other than the FAA aircraft that flight-checked the procedures, the answer is zero.
Synergy Aerospace has signed a contract for a further 12 AgustaWestland helicopters, a mix of AW109 Powers, Grands and AW139s. The order is part of the multi-year umbrella deal for 56 helicopters that was signed in mid-2006.
Turkey’s efforts to field a long-range F-16 reconnaissance pod with direct-to-ground downlink has led to a legal fight in Israel. The pod program is running more than a year behind schedule. Elbit’s Elop has filed a breach of contract claim against supplier Rafael, which was involved in development of the communications link. Elop is seeking $55 million from an arbitration panel. But Rafael is fighting back, saying it should receive $14 million from Elop. Elop-parent Elbit says it sees no financial implications from the counterclaim.
Denzil Samuels (see photo) has been appointed vice president-global business development within the Northrop Grumman Corp. ’s Information Technology Sector, McLean, Va. He was vice president/general manager of global managed services for Avaya Inc.
All six of the big U.S. international airlines will serve China by 2009 under carrier-selection and frequency-allocation decisions issued Sept. 25 by the U.S. Transportation Dept. The results offered something for everyone in the proceeding except for the longest of long shots—MAXjet Airlines, which wanted to expand its low-fare, all-business-class product to U.S. aviation’s most hotly contested foreign destination.
BAE Systems has completed acceptance testing of the F-35’s spiral release 2 electronic warfare suite. The evaluation was conducted by Lockheed Martin program officials. This release provides the capability to perform initial manufacturing system checkouts. So far, 120,000 lines of software code have been built and tested for the electronic surveillance and countermeasures system. Two additional software releases are planned for the flight-test program.
Early lunar settlers could use their relative isolation to try new forms of governing themselves, much as European colonists did in 17th-century North America, says a young researcher who works on small lunar missions at NASA’s Ames Research Center. In a paper admittedly full of “wild ideas” presented to the 2007 International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, William Marshall and several like-minded friends argue that even a 100-person lunar base could be a sort of Petri dish for new concepts designed to upgrade democracy.
NTSB has released its final report on the Apr. 19, 2006 accident that killed aviation pioneer Scott Crossfield near Ludville, Ga. The 84-year-old Crossfield, operating his Cessna 210A, was en route from Prattville, Ala., to Manassas, Va., when he requested and received clearance to divert from an area of severe convective activity. Some 30 sec. after initiating a turn, the aircraft disappeared from radar, breaking up at low altitude and crashing into mountainous terrain (AW&ST May 1, 2006, pp. 21, 62).
Canadian carrier Air Transat was well into implementing a safety management system when a top-ranked official came “close to the line in terms of disregard” for a company safety procedure. Michael Dilollo, the executive in charge of packaging and selling safety management, saw an opportunity.
U.S. airports are pushing to ensure that an increase in the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) cap to $7 will be included in the final version of the House of Representatives’ FAA reauthorization bill. The issue of raising the PFC cap is long overdue, particularly for the smaller airports that make up the majority of the National Airport System Plan, says Thomas Nolan, executive director of Palm Springs (Calif.) International Airport and chairman of the American Assn. of Airport Executives’ Small Commercial Service Airports Committee.
Alenia Aeronautica is preparing to ramp up work for Boeing’s 787 to 10 sections a month and has allocated €500 million ($707 million) to upgrade its facilities to get there. Given the delay in the 787’s first flight, there’s a lot of pressure all along the supply chain with competing needs of an aggressive ramp-up and a continued fastener shortage. The supply of the latter is being centrally managed by Boeing to ensure a balance in the production flow.
As the world fleet multiplies and passenger traffic is counted in billions, one of aviation’s major challenges is to drive down the accident rate. And meeting that goal requires a new method of prevention—harvesting terabytes of data from safety reporting systems—to identify causal precursors and stop the smoking hole in the ground from happening.
Singapore’s new Gulfstream G550 Conformal Airborne Early Warning aircraft, together with F-15SG strike fighters, will underpin a new offensive strategy that the country has adopted as it increasingly copies the order of battle of its long-time defense mentor, Israel.
Malaysian long-haul budget carrier AirAsia X is planning to raise about $300 million to help further aircraft purchases, either Airbus A350s or Boeing 787s. The airline will begin flying this month, using leased A330s until delivery of the 15 A330-300s it has ordered. It’s also planning to lease A340s.
Under a new contract, Arianespace is to launch the JCSAT-12 telecom satellite to provide in-orbit backup for Japan’s JSAT Corp. The spacecraft will be sent into orbit by an Ariane 5 booster in summer 2009. The award is Arianespace’s 12th geostationary deal of the year. It follows a contract from French armaments agency DGA to orbit four 135-kg. Elisa electronic intelligence satellites.
Boeing has delivered the first production EA-18G Growler to the Navy. The G-1 aircraft will join the test program at NAS Patuxent River, Md. Flight testing is to be completed in 2008, followed by initial operations in 2009. The company also has captured a $1.3-billion contract add-on for procurement of 24 F/A-18Fs and mission equipment for Australia. Meanwhile, GE snagged a $340-million contract to supply 84 F-414-GE-400 engines for Super Hornets and Growlers.
A Northrop Grumman/EADS North America team says it has not included the A330-200F in its proposal for the USAF’s $40-billion refueling tanker recapitalization program. Program sources earlier indicated the team would consider shifting from a converted passenger model to the freighter variant after the first four aircraft are built for system design and development. Last week the team flew its first green A330 that is designated for the Air Force program if the team wins.
